


Vulnerability

by mrjengablock



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Cauldron Cup Round One, Cauldron Cup Season Three, Conflict, Gen, Snippets, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 00:36:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18789439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrjengablock/pseuds/mrjengablock
Summary: Snip 01 - Theme: Conflict - Match: Vulnerability — Sveta, Jess





	Vulnerability

The  _thwip, thwip, thwip_  reverberated through her, shaking to her core, even as thick black lines writhed at the edge of her vision. Bits of black crept toward her eyes, found places to hook at her nose and mouth. They yanked and contorted before lashing away, faster than the eye could track. Still, still she kept her eyes wide and trained on the scene before her. Futile.

With a hundred points of data—a hundred points of  _contact_ —she feared she couldn’t be mindful of them all.

Something would slip, and she would slip, and each surging wire would strike out in malicious victory towards things that would bend and break and snap. So many, so, so many broken and bent and bleeding things around her. In her dreams, they sometimes mixed with a separate, normal girl, dyeing her perfect fingers red. Marred, like the mark on her face, the veritable scarlet letter: Ω.

_Stop_ , she directed her racing thoughts.  _You’re in control. I’m in control._  “I am focused on building a better future. Every success is a brick in that construction, but my mistakes do not tear it down. They are a part of me, but they are not the most important part.”

The familiar mantra rippled through her tendrils, which tensed and lashed, but finally found her steel peg-bed and rested there. Well, not rested—they were restless, tightening and squeezing, ready to kill any threat.  _There is no threat. My thoughts are calm._

“O-okay,” she called out.

A quiver passed through the air, revealing one scaled limb resting heavy against the concrete floor, followed by another, and another: eight in total. It was a sinuous beast that seemed both snake and scorpion, with whiskers fanning out from a fish-like face. It didn’t move but for the flipping scales that controlled its camouflage.

A tendril snapped out, striking through the whiskers and gripping the tail, which pulled and stretched like taffy. The other figure gave no indication that it was hurting in any way, only placidly standing by the wall as its coiled bulk appeared

“Oh no, please, I’m sorry,” she whispered, reflexively. She wasn’t hurting the person on the other end. Focusing on the tendril, she willed, begged, it to bunch and contract.

_Return_ , she thought firmly with only a tinge of that desperation that had plagued her in the beginning. This was alright; this was progress. She could and  _would_  control herself.

“I am in control of this body,” Sveta whispered to herself, “it does not control me.”

The tendril returned to wrap around its fellows, binding them together as they twisted around the pipe with enough force to leave indents in the steel.

The figure was chosen for its malleability and slow reaction time. The fishy lips pulled back, lethargic, and she was treated to a pleased, eyes-half-lidded smile. Rather than open its mouth, the throat bulged like that of a croaking frog. The sound stretched into a vaguely singsong voice, “Doing great! Sveta, incredible.”

Sveta pictured the girl on the other side of that smile—a person like the person in her dreams, with perfect fingers and pretty hair—and she felt a rush of nervous pleasure.

She’d never seen Jess before, not the real Jess, who hid away that human body out of fear. The only ones allowed in her room were doctors, and even then, it was never the body that spoke. Jess had shared a little of her life beyond the Asylum. A group of friends, a game they used to play (like the computer games she played with Sveta) and a horrible tragedy.

The first time she’d spoken of it, her gorilla-monkey-bird had shaken so hard it came apart.

But they were  _both_  making progress. She would get to see Jess, the real Jess.

Now that they were situated, the lights behind the thick, bullet-proof glass came on slowly. Sveta’s eyes flickered nervously through the waiting image. This was another beginning, another brick in the building of their relationship. Some day, they may be in the same room.

For now, the generated beast was there as her proxy in the room, and Jess was behind the glass.

There—the light was finally bright enough that she could make out a pale, limp figure. She was slight, so small in the chair that she seemed barely a teen, let alone an adult. While her head slumped against the back, the rest of her was locked in place with straps so the beast could carry her around without being too bothered.

Shaggy auburn hair and scars, but so beautiful. Sveta let out a shaky breath, unable to draw her eyes away from her friend.

“Hate my body,” the toad-snake hummed softly.

Her tentacles reached out and yanked a shelf off the wall. Neither she nor the toad flinched, and certainly not the unconscious girl behind the glass.

“But it’s real,” was all Sveta could reply.

“I don’t want any of it to be real. I keep- keep  _flinching_  away whenever reality rears its ugly head. When I wake up I just lay there and wait until I can sleep again. It used to be just my legs that were like this—now it’s the whole body,” the voice, though slow, carried far more emotion than the languid form could. “Emaciated, weak. It’s all a horrible dream, but when I wake up it’s all still there and it’s worse besides. At least in my dreams I can fly.”

“I understand,” Sveta said. “When I dream, I’m a girl, with all the things that entails, and then I wake up and none of it’s real anymore. It’s like a cruel joke.”

“A cruel plot,” Jess confirmed, softly, looking farther away than just beyond the glass—like she was in another world.

There was silence for a moment, broken only by the sound of the smaller tentacles moving through the air.

“Feel so selfish.” It was barely a whisper. “You’re trying so hard. I’m just running away.”

Agitated tresses twisted so hard the bars of her bed trembled. Her pale mask of a face shook with them.

“You’re not running from me. You’re here.”

“Yeah,” she croaked, sounding so bittersweet, “I’m  _here_.”


End file.
